Sitting can raise blood pressure

By: Richard Major, RHN, TA, ISSA Personal Trainer for Seniors

Last months’ article discussed how to read and understand blood pressure. The end of this column will provide you with five changes you can make to regulate blood pressure, but before they are discussed, it would be wise to spend some time discussing one activity you can do daily to prevent or regulate blood pressure. Stop sitting and start moving.

‘Actively sedentary’ is a new category of people who are active for one hour but sit around for the rest of the day. The World Health Organization now lists inactivity as the fourth biggest killer of adults worldwide, and what’s of much interest is the finding that prolonged sitting is a risk factor for poor health and early death. One of the most recent studies found that just one hour of sitting impaired blood flow to the main artery (Femoral artery) in the leg by as much as 50 percent; however, by simply taking a ten minute walk for every hour spent sitting was found to reduce the risks of heart disease associated with long-term sitting.

Recent findings also showed that six hours of uninterrupted sitting counteracted the positive health benefits of one hour of exercise. This means that you cannot offset ten hours of stillness with one hour of exercise. The key is to not sit for more than 50 minutes out of each hour. Ideally, you’d want to sit for a maximum of about three hours a day.

Aside from simply standing and moving, an exercise program is a great way to regulate blood pressure. Be sure to check with your doctor before starting any new exercise program, and when given approval, here are some general guidelines you may want to consider:

Precautions:Warm up, stretch and cool down when exercising. Always keep moving after doing cardiovascular exercises until your heart rate is close to normal. Do not just stop if resting. Be sure to keep moving, and focus on muscular endurance instead of strength, meaning perform 10-15 repetitions with lighter weight vs less repetitions with a heavy weight, and focus on the lower extremities. Also, keep in mind that overhead lifting can raise your blood pressure (ie shoulder press).

Contraindications:Avoid training when you have a resting systolic blood pressure of 175mmHg or higher. (120/80mmHg is considered normal), avoid heavy resistance training; and avoid holding your breath when exercising. 

Aside from the latter, here are five changes you can make (in no particular order) to regulate blood pressure:

Limit sodium (salt) intake, and focus on eating whole foods instead of packaged, processed food.

Exercise daily. Daily!

Limit alcohol, caffeine and cigarette consumption

Lower you stress levels by whatever means necessary

Lose weight if you’re overweight. If you are Male and your waist measures over 40 inches or if you’re female and your waste measures over 35 inches, you are at risk of heart disease.

If you have high blood pressure (hypertension), or borderline high blood pressure, the chances of heart disease are very real and very serious for you. Be sure to see your doctor if you have or think you have high blood pressure, so that informed, healthy lifestyle changes can be discussed. Ask about getting on an appropriate exercise routine too.

High blood pressure can be lowered to healthy levels. It is not necessary to have high blood pressure as a lifelong disease. You just need to make the necessary lifestyle changes.   

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2014/10/17/walking-intermittent-movement.aspx

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/in-depth/high-blood-pressure/art-20046974?pg=1